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THE RAINBOW'S FOOT 



VERSE 

BY JULIUS W;' MULLER 









PRIVATELY PRINTED 

BY BARTLETT ORR PRESS 

NEW YORK I92I 



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Copyright 1921 by 
Bartlett Orr Press 

NEW YORK 



FE8il'22 



©C!,A659018 



'Dedicated to 
Edward E. Bartlett 

T'ublisher and Friend 

whose exacting critical judgment 

was in this case subdued 

by personalfondness 

The Author 

Neiv York 1921 



Peebarsett House 

roE.E.B. 

Not to confront the sense 

With splendid insolence 
Or to oppress with pride the simple earth. 

But striving to express 

All beauty's gentleness, 
Merging itself anew in each day's birth. 

Not for myself alone — 

Not piled-up brick and stone — 
But something more I pray my house shall be: 

Something to make it whole 

With human nature's soul. 
Something to make it dear for others as for me. 

So let it stand to give 

All that it may receive. 
That spending, it shall earn the fee of memories, 

And all who touch its door 

Be mine for evermore. 
My ever present guests when my house is old 
with trees. 



Kmagansett, 1 9 1 9 



[7] 



The Rainbow's Foot 



The Rainbow's Foot 

The men who went in galleons 

What had they for their pain 
Of seeking after silver towns 

In jungles of New Spain, 
What brought they back to English downs 

Save scar and rag for gain ? 

The men who hunt the rainbow's end 

What find they on their way 
Of seeking after painted feet 

That stand in fairy spray, 
What bring they back to house and street 

Of riches for their pay? 

Though we find naught but radiant mist 

That hands have never prest. 
Though they found only fortune's frowns 

Amid the magic West, 
What care we for the silver towns 

That had the golden quest ? 



[ ^o] 



Art 

Keeping its gaze so high 

That pride can not come nigh. 

Still stooping humbly low 

To know the humblest woe — 

So near to earth it understands the clod: 

So far from earth, it hears the speech of God. 

New born to life with every dawning sun, 
Dying a sunset death with each day done, 
Noting man's lust, and noting it is vain. 
Yet for man's sake pierced with his spears of 
pain. 



[ '« ] 



Quest 

Oh, ever-young Desire 

That evermore denies, 
That lets not old years tire 

Nor young wait to grow wise. 

Oh, islands of our longing 
That wait us just beyond ! 

Oh, headlands blue and thronging 
In seas we have not conned. 

That draw us from good mooring 
Back to the wind-dark sea. 

That coax us to enduring 
The perils we might flee! 

Dear loves that cannot bind us. 
Dear memories that implore. 

Left, like the leagues behind us, 
For leagues that lie before. 

Hail, islands ! For to seek you 
We ventured without rest. 

Farewell ! For now we speak you. 
Still other isles are best. 



[ '- ] 



GoD's House 

Free! free! Unending Space, and Time, 

and God! 
No more to fear the morrows, or to plod 
The narrow day from narrow care to care. 

Starlight on mountains, dawn-wind on the sea — 
I one with them and they at one with me. 
One with the moon-flood and the holy air. 

Dear husk of mine to which I held so long. 
Thou but the instrument and I the song. 
Why did I fear the pang that bade me go 

To join the harping of the winds that run 
And high on shimmering ladders of the sun 
Hear the earth's song that earth can never know? 

I run with April clad in cobweb rains 

And cruise on thin moon-prows or hold the 

manes 
Of flocky mists slow-herding on a hill. 

My only task to take unto my heart 
All beauty, and to be all beauty's part. 
To be all peace, and know no other will. 

Where shift the territories of the main 
From blue to indigo and blue again. 
Cradling the fairy children of the foam, 

[ '3 ] 



Or where on some sharp-bitten peak is hung 
A white still cloud like angel-raiment flung, 
Houseless I house, unlaboring I roam. 

Forever seeking with a great content, 
Knowing there is no end to wonderment. 
No final pause for eager questing wings. 

But ever new cloud-continents before, 
New knowledges, new mysteries to adore, 
New portals wide to bright adventurings. 

Yet sometimes, in some truce of frost and stars. 
As throbs a pain of old, forgotten scars 
Poignant, I know of roads that once I trod 

That draw me earthward from my clear domain 
To seek a once-loved lighted little pane — 
And lol I know the loneliness of God! 



[ H] 



Drift of Sea 



Derelict 

In the dim, slow dance of the gray sea-wraiths, 

the souls of the drownd--^^ dead 
That sailor-men call the blind sea-fog, I drive 
and I roll ahead. 
No canvas fills to give me way, 
No hand is on my helm to sway — 
To the careless swell 
Chants my mad ship's-bell: 
"Dead! Long dead!" 

Drawn by a secret strong sea-pull, I run, I beat, 

I tack. 
Lurking eyeless, a damn<?^ ship, I lie in the 
steamer track ! 
In his path that man has marked by stars 
I swing with my sagging hulk and spars, 
And even my bell has fear of me! 
She quavers over the shrouded sea: 
" Dead ! Long dead !" 

Where the lost ships swing in a great slow ring, 

hung with their rotting gear. 
Gathered from all the places of sea, to drift there 
year by year, 
I have made a course marked on no chart, 
I have lain on the chasm's secret heart. 
And its silence held in a long, long spell 
Has been shattered by my wailing bell: 
"Dead! Long dead!" 

[ ^6] 



The deepest deeps of the secret sea 
Have reached to my keel and courted me ; 
They have draped me loving in living green, 
They have led me in ways where man hath not been, 
In a hushed strange sea where breezes die, 
In a fierce dull sea where the ice grinds by; 
The whale marks me with familiar eyes, 
The gray gull laughs on me friendly-wise, 
"Free ! You are free ! " the gannet cries. 
Yet ever my wheel twirls restlessly 
As my dead captain were steering me. 
"Dead! Long dead!" 



[ ^7] 



Full Moon 

The white enchantress lies 
Staring on all the dunes; and, worshipping, 
Th' enamored beaches look into her eyes. 
She beckons them and beckons to the sea 
Till the adoring tides stride jealously 
And smite the rival land to win her grace. 

Savagely, beat on beat, 
The rough sea-lover clamors till she stoops 
And in his hands sets down her silver feet. 



[ i8] 



Sail and Stack 

SONG OF THE OLD SHIP 

I AM the poet's vision still! 

Still down the ancient sea 
Trod now by monsters bellowing, 

His dreams are all of me. 

For when they set my braces taut, 

The last ship of the line, 
And sailed me from the ken of men 

Into the ridging brine. 
They could not take the memory 

Of the day when ships were blown 
Over the uncontrolld"^ wave 

By th' breath of God alone. 

For me through patient centuries 

The patient forests rose, ' 
From Scandinavia's cataracts 

To Oregonian snows; 
For m.e the strong full-bosomed hills 

Fed full the lusty trees 
That I might answer unafraid 

The hailing of the breeze. 

They cut the Druid temples down 

To make me ribs of oak; 
For me the axe-man's smiting arm 

Primeval echoes woke; 
They rafted down the Kennebec, 

They hewed in Lebanon, 
They stole the secrets of the stars 

My pathless path to con. 

[ ^9] 



For me the April-swollen floods 

Were harnessed where they whirled 
That they might bear me keels to take 

The measure of the world. 
For me the looms wove in and out 

A-chattering year by year — 
They ravished all the world for me 

To hang me with its gear. 

With blossomed snow the South was white, 

The East beset with bloom. 
That rope and sail in virgin show 

Should garnish mast and boom; 
They sounded the unsounded deep 

That I might tread it free 
When ushered by the storm I made 

My bridal with the sea. 

What tho' the last of all my line 

Go dipping fast below 
The rocking rim of sea and sky 

Where all the dead ships go ! 
No strings are swept for steel and stack. 

No lyres struck for steam ; 
Forever my white pyramids 

Swim in the singer's dream. 

SONG OF THE NEW SHIP 

What reck I of the singer's praise? 

His words are nothing worth. 
The hymns to me rise fiery 

From furnaces of earth. 

[ 20] 



spawned in the planet's secret ribs 

The arch-flame moulded me 
Coeval with the timeless stars 

Ere ever was a sea. 
Pent in a low and utter dark. 

With thunder-throes of birth, 
Fathered by chaos I was born 

And suckled by the earth. 

Fierce-beating veins of under-fire 

Sped angry through my core, 
The mountains pressed upon me 

And the land-slides ground me sore. 
Pent in the low and utter dark, 

In the primeval slime. 
Alone, in low and utter dark, . 

I waited for my time. 

Go with the Indian-footed night 

From dusk again to dawn. 
And you shall see a toiling earth 

Ringed 'round with pits that yawn. 
Gullet and throat of mine and shaft, 

Engines that writhe and whine — 
The Children of the Sun dive deep 

To seek me in my mine. 

My wonder burns upon the night! 

The mountain speaks with blaze! 
From twenty times a thousand heights 

My midnight fire sprays ! 

[^i ] 



Behold the drunken laughter 
Of the furnace mouths that roar 

In fury but obedient still 
To wrest me from my ore. 

Behold my savage bards who write 

My ballad black with coal ! 
Hark to my harpers as they smite 

My lyre's molten soul! 
Smelter and forge and toilers swart, 

These make my poesy, 
And thrust me, Vulcan's counterpart. 

Into your storied sea. 



L " ] 



Tide 

The tide is a black witch. She whispers to the sedge 

that wades to the channel's edge 
Secrets lured from the sea — from chasms that she 

has stirred where his guilt lies interred. 
She leads the groping keel where in the white 

surf-fret the trap of the shoal is set. 
Tryst holds she with the moon. Her sea-world fills 

abrim that she may draw to him. 
She calls, and the storm replies. His rollers shoulder 

a-strand and bite in the flank of the land. 
When safiron morning breaks, past point and bar 

she creeps to bury his deeds in the deeps. 



[^3 ] 



The Storm-sun Hunts 

The pale storm-sun is riding a hunt 

With the sun-dogs by her side. 

The galloping gale for whipper-in, 

The hunting course the tide. 

The frightened coveys of the sea 
Broken-winged have fluttered a-lee 

And are running far and wide. 

They fronted it proud against the sky. 

Canvas and spar and stack. 

Till the merry horn of the tempest called 

The hunters on their track, 

Hunters of sea and hunters of air, 
Riders of cloud and of white sea-mare. 

Hunters of wind and wrack. 

The wrinkled old reefs peer from the sea 
With their white beards floating free. 
And their laughter rumbles along the coast 
As they watch the quarry flee — 

"Hunt them to lee, to the long ground-swell. 
We will hold them loving and keep them well. 
When the storm-sun hunts on the sea." 



[H] 



Caribbee 

The wild reef-colors blaze 
In locked banana bays 
Where like the flowers 
The pageant hours 

Pass but to bloom anew, 
And frigate clouds parade 
Before the trailing Trade, 
No harbor using 
But ever cruising 

Rainless in rainless blue. 



[25] 



The Sailors' Graveyard 

We rest, that long unrestful 
Plied on the endless seas 

And ever found them narrow : 
Now find we ample ease. 

The sails beat in unchallenged. 

Inviting us no more. 
No more the long-ridged breakers 

Tempt us to haul from shore. 

We rest, and undesirous 

Watch sunsets come and go. 

Watch moons that wed the waters — 
All things that we loved so. 

The living bar their houses 

And sigh for us that lie 
Unhoused, alone in darkness — 

But we nor long nor sigh. 

We rest that were unrestful. 

We that desired so. 
Now wait, no more impatient, 

Content with what we know. 



[z6] 



A Toll of Days 



Sunset 

A LONELY, lonely amber-lighted sea 

And islands all untrod 
Whose archipelagoes, rose-frontiered, be 

The evening joy of God. 

Oh, pilot, seeking havens of desire 

With never-sated will. 
Land ho ! See, yonder, in the western fire 

Are headlands waiting still ! 



[ ^8 ] 



April 

"Oh, wind !" said God to the breeze 
Where it played in His garden sea, 

"Seek thou the waiting land 
And give it peace from me." 

The wind blew in from the sea. 

His touch was a caress. 
The tired cities smiled 

Thanks for his gentleness. 

The wind blew in from the sea, 
With a laughter of idle things. 

And the tired streets were stirred 
To a memory of wings. 



[^9] 



October 

Artist folk are whimful, 

Capricious, idle, sinful; 

And when they die they cannot be 

Angels neat like you and me. 

But in a prison dark and bare. 

Underneath the golden stair. 

They must repent in tears and grime 

For mixing paint and making rhyme. 

And hark with groaning and with qualms 

To Dr. Watts' pious psalms. 

But once a year by Peter's grace 

They go to earth to sin a space ! 

The cherubim stop up their ears 

And spoil their golden wings with tears. 

Shocked by the heathen verse and song 

That echoes from that wicked throng. 

With shout and harp and clatter. 

And pots of paint to splatter, 

The artist folk on earth alight 

Forgetting Heaven for a night, 

And rushing through the scenery 

They paint out all the greenery. 

When honest folk awake next day 

They blink to find the world so gay. 

And never dream that such a wight 

As Virgil was abroad that night 

Or that the hills were set aglow 

By sinful Michelangelo. 



[30] 



November 

All the high trees stand still. 
Scarcely a shy wind passing through 
Makes a lone leaf to thrill. 

A hush that is not death, 
But a rapt ecstacy of earth 
Holding entranc^^ breath. 

All the gray aisles are bare. 
No flitting fur betrays a trail, 
No feather blurs the air. 

Yet is this loneliness 
A-throng as with a multitude 
Of eager presences. 

So near, so clear, they bring 
Almost the touch of vanished loves 
Almost their whispering. 

All the high trees stand still. 
Scarcely a shy wind passing through 
Makes a lone leaf to thrill. 



[31 ] 



Easter 

This is the Wisdom of Ages brought to its 
ultimate goal. 

We have traced man out with patience to the farthest 

gate of time 
Back to his formless arch-type that lay in primeval 

slime. 
We have measured his brain and weighed it — scholar 

and knight and hind — 
And of this thing called his Spirit never an ounce can 

we find. 

This is the Wisdom of Ages : that man hath 
not a soul. 



He hath Dreams of a Heaven unseen by 
bodily eyes. 

We have searched him out with the scalpel till we 

know what he is. 
We have analyzed him and pondered and we come 

down to this : 
That all the hot love that burns him, his ardor, his 

lust, 
His dreams, and his terrible visions are things of the 

dust. 

His Dream is a Chemical Process that ends 
when he dies. 

[ 3^ 



Andlo! It is Spring, and the stone is rolled 
from the tomb ! 

The sunlight burns into the cavern. Behold ! None 
lies there ! 

From death's empty hands sprout the lilies, immacu- 
late, fair. 

The trees, like young mothers, are lifting their baby 
buds high — 

Soft flameless green fires of life that are fathered by 
sky. 

Over Winter and Wisdom grow Life-time, 
and Love-time, and bloom. 



[ 33 ] 



Flower Song 

We are the truest lovers that were since time was 

begun, 
For we dream not and live not, save for our lover 

sun; 
Aye, though our lover's kisses destroy us with his 

heat. 
We die for him in rapture, and call the dying sweet. 



[ 34] 



Voices of Pan 



The Rapids 

Oh, my brothers! Oh, my lovers! I am lonely in my 
mountains ! 
I am lonely and I call to you afar 
Who would know my maiden passion, who would 
kiss my unwooed fountains. 
Kiss and race me where my shouting rapids are. 

They are waiting you, my brothers, they are waiting 
you, my lovers. 
Oh, my lovers of the starshine and the dew! 
In the echo-haunted gorges that my mountain-gate 
discovers 
My headlong wild white rapids wait for you. 

None has felt my bosom's throbbing, none has lain 

in my embraces 

Since the glacier carved my highway to the sea. 

Innocent of man, and virgin, I have held my lonely 

places 

For the lovers who are brave to strive with me. 

They must come to swift, fierce wooing who would 
venture to my capture 
In my bridal bed of boulder and of flood; 
Never coward heart or weakling shall be partner of 
my rapture. 
Be a partner of my passion in my wood. 



[ 36] 



I am great with great desire that my lovers shall be- 
hold me! 
Oh, my brothers of the stars hine and the dew! 
In the water-riven passes of the granites that enfold 
me 
My headlong wild white horses stamp for you. 

In the far, high gap of azure where the hills with- 
draw asunder 
As reluctant lovers pausing, loth to part. 
My white herder herds them naked in the cloven 
ledges' thunder, 
And she welcomes you with angry rainbow dart. 

Wondrous, perilous, her beauty where she waits 
upon my ledges ! 
Bright and cold her arms reach out for him who 
dares 
Snatch her kisses as he hurries by the chasm's gleam- 
ing edges. 
When he casts himself a-down my roaring stairs. 

Though she clutches hungry at you as you charge 
upon my horses, 
Though she grasps the mane and flashes by your 
side. 
Though she slay you ! She is Wonder ! From your 
life's primeval sources 
She is Wonder that is with you as you ride ! 

[ 37 ] 



Plunge ye with my plunging horses where the fall- 
ing water hisses ! 
Drive them shouting! Spur them spouting! Till 
they fling 
Furious over, furious downward, to the glistening 
abysses 
Where my black, unsounded pools majestic swing. 

'Ware ! My naked herds are crowding, for they run 
a gauntlet narrow 
Wild with bellow of cascade and smoke of spray ; 
Granite lips ye ! Water whips ye ! But ye ride upon 
an arrow ! 
Dive ye with the diving clamor, and away 1 



[ 38] 



Shelving Rock 

He writeth His patience large on the untroubled 

hills. 
He setteth upon them His sign in token they know 

what he wills. 
They ponder His task and are still. They serve Him 

adoring with trees. 
Unageing they sift the slow ages and cast them as 

rain from their knees. 

He writeth His mountains large on a much-troubled 

earth, 
And lifteth them high for His sign declaring what 

trouble is worth. 
Untroubled they brood on the plain. They ponder 

the struggle and spoil. 
They brood on the tumult of man. They ponder 

his travail of toil. 

He turneth His azure urn where their summits 

upraise, 
And filleth the bowl of the world with a great, slow 

wonder of days. 
They look on His way and behold, with a great, still 

wholeness of thought. 
The turmoil of valleys below. They watch and they 

know it is naught. 

His warders of sanctuary from days that are old. 
That breathlessly stand at His hand and watch His 

high meaning unfold. 
They question not man of his deeds. They ask not 

of goodness or sin. 
In passionless peace they accept, to unchanging 

peace take him in. 

[39] 



They declare His design, far from the errors of strife. 
Unangered they speak to the men of the great, slow 

wonder of life. 
Unhurried they cast down the seeds of His dark, 

kind poppy of night. 
Unhurried they lift up the sun and slowly unbanner 

His light. 

They speak to the cities: "Lo! To our silence 

upsprings 
Fierce music of engines, and vast, and a great vast 

splendor of things! 
A challenge that storms at the sky with a wild, piled 

marvel of stone! 
A lust of great lights set on high, that stare as hot 

eyes at His throne. 

"We vision an anguished dream in your passionate 

eyes: 
Great triumphs that roar at the sun, and a long, 

torn torment of sighs : 
Great wonder of will and of deeds, and a long, worn 

torture of tasks: 
Great secret of sorrows and tears, and a blind, wide 

laughter of masks. 

"Oh, wonders of swimming lights on the deeps of 

the dark ! 
We reckon the tale of your days. To your high, grim 

clamors we hark. 
Ye burden the souls of your men with a high, grim 

passion of mind. 
They conquer. Andlo! They are gone, like a high 

vain blowing of wind." 

[40] 



Prisoner of Belshazzar 

This single city that alone I know 

Has held me bonded in its carven hand, 

A youth who dreamed of trail and space; and, lo! 
A man grown old who sees the dreams disband. 

The dreams of trail and space that cheated me 
The while with plodding, habit-learning feet 

I made my only trail that was to be — 

The little trail that leads from street to street. 

The city, careless frowning at the day: 
The city, weary frowning at the dusk: 

With carelessness it ground my youth away, 
In weariness it casts aside my husk. 

Oh! Once there was brave singing in m.y breast! 

My city tuned it to its one refrain, 
Its one refrain of footsteps without rest 

That endless strive the circle's end to gain. 

Oh! Once a splendid vision was in me! 

My city broke it with its iron rods. 
Its smoking stacks, black brushes painting free. 

Swept black across my pictures of the Gods. 

Here half a hundred years have I been pent — 
I, God, to whom Thy crown^/^ dreams were sent 

Of thundering capes that shoulder out 

Into Thy smashing seas. 
Of glory-drunken Trades that shout 

Across Thine coral keys. 
Of spell-bound coasts that on a Spanish Main 
Wait for the galleons to come again. 

[41 ] 



'Round this one city that alone I know, 

All day th' unharnessed sea-tides come and go, 

I watched in youth as now in age, a clod, 

Th' unfettered ships whose decks I never trod, 

I watched and longed and followed not their quest 

For their green tumbling gardens of unrest. 

With task-bound eyes I dared not pause to see 

The rainbow days' procession over me, 

Too dully moulded to my city's plan 

To rise and follow where their footsteps ran. 

The wind, a laughing youth with flower-filled arms. 

Shouted a message from Thine azure farms; 

My city's breath struck dead his blossomed spoil. 

My city's dust fouled his bright feet with toil. 

Before the tempest's sullen fortress wall 

I saw Thy angry rains ride, black and tall. 

In jostled troops of lances saw them form 

And charge with streaming pennons of the storm. 

I dreamed of some time seeing them ride free 
Through houseless valleys and on unfenced sea. 
And sometimes, in an hour of freshened truth 
I heard again, with the old sense of youth. 
Thy crested waters clamoring afar 
In smoking battle where no frontiers are — 
The old, old song struck up of sea and wind 
That makes men weep and follow on behind 
To seek the goal that lies but in pursuit — 
The piper's country builded by his flute. 



It sang to me of herded Alps that throw 
The avalanche from their white horns of snow, 
Of breathless valleys where the plumed bamboos 
Make nodding courts in which the ibis woos, 
Of twilight jungles where the summer stands 
Forever held by painted orchid hands. 

My city's smoke streams heavily and mars 
The sinking sun with moody prison bars. 

Yet! Twilight comes. And in the widening space 
My city casts her veil. She lifts her face 
Toward the dusk that stoops, a soft gray nun 
Bending in pity to a wounded one. 
And as a forehead dark and knit with pain 
At some good touch grows innocent again. 
My maimed city sheds her frown, to rest 
As in a prayer on the soft gray breast. 

Then, sudden-hung in storm against the sky 

A lighted wonder builds itself on high ! 

A mountain bleeding with arterial fires, 

In fires spring the city's steeps and spires! 

Fires that dim the patient eyes of night 

As a sad angel staring wild and bright. 

His earth-stained wings still vast with splendid light ! 

Lord God ! The dream has still been mine ! 
Still have I seen the Vision shine ! - 
I thank thee, grovelling afar, 
I, prisoner of Belshazzar! 

[43 ] 



Wild Geese 

From the high ramparts of the darkness falling, 

Trumpets, wild trumpets calling, 

Where the gray squadrons of the north go steering 

Through roadless worlds, unfearing. 

To look, sky-hung, on seas with slow swells lifting, 

To look, cloud-swung, on plains with snow-graves 

drifting. 
To look on earth 'twixt dawn and sunset lying. 

From the high ramparts of the darkness falling, 

I hear, I hear your calling. 

Trumpets, star-echoed, dying. 

Oh, dear wild brothers flying! 

I hear, I hear your glad, brave freedom crying, 

And turn to labor, sighing. 



[44] 



Plume Hunters 

The orphaned nestlings cry. Everywhere in the 

wood 
The Httle voices plead of a gentle multitude, 
Everywhere in the wood, calling from tree to tree. 
The baby voices respond to each other helplessly. 
Helpless they call and beseech, wistful they cry and 

spy 
For a gentle mother wing, a clear, dear mother eye. 

No mother voice replies, no mother wing comes 

near. 
Till the wood is wild with the cries of babies in deadly 

fear. 
The dusk steals in and the dark ; the night wind 

awakens chill ; 
The little voices grow weak, and all the wood is still. 

There was joy in the wood at dawn. There were 

proud, bright mother eyes. 
And foolish little hearts that quivered mother-wise. 
Tiny and foolish hearts that quivered in each breast 
With a fond and foohsh love for a foohsh Httle nest. 

A chorus of little prayers arose at dawn so clear 
That surely God afar in His heaven smiled to hear! 
Surely His son who sought the wood when men were 

grim. 
He Hstened and was glad that the birds made prayer 

to Him ! 

[45 ] 



Only a dawn has gone. Gone is the sinless love. 
The parents dead below, the nestlings dead above. 
The dusk steals in and the dark ; the night wind 

awakens chill ; 
The little voices have ceased. The wood is terribly 

still. 

Oh, little children of God ! Most innocent of us all ! 
Far off there are gentle hearts that would break to 

hear you call, 
Soft women's hearts that would break to hear your 

piteous cry ! 
And, oh, Httle children of God ! It is for them that 

you die. 



[46] 



Secret Gardens 



Fairy Tale 

The fairy tales are true, dear, 
To me who have grown wise 

From looking long on you, dear, 
And reading in your eyes. 

I read deep in your eyes, dear. 

Of "once upon a time" 
When all the world went well, dear. 

And life was like a rhyme. 

A rhyme with but one theme, dear, 

Yet one that's ever new. 
Because it tells a dream, dear. 

And how that dream comes true. 

When I look in your eyes, dear, 

I see no world of men. 
But under fairy skies, dear, 

I see a fairy glen. 

And there a lad and lass, dear, 
Walk ever hand in hand. 

In youth that cannot fade, dear. 
While they're in fairyland. 

They've locked the fairy gate, dear. 
Beyond all locksmiths' art. 

For when they turned the key, dear. 
They hid it in your heart. 

[48] 



Maude 

Money and goods I've won and spent; 
Uncared they came, unwept they went, 

And yet a miser was I still. 
For I have hoarded precious things — 
Dear words and rich rememberings 

And loves, my treasure-house to fill. 

So is my wealth not mine alone. 
For you are part of all I own — 

Your smile, your presence, and your heart; 
And these, the verses from my shelf, 
Are not from me, but from yourself. 

And only phrases are my part. 



[49] 



At Sea 

High in the north the constellations ride 
That look on her. Adrift on southern tide 
I see not wave or foam and can but mark 
Her face, a blossom tender in the dark. 

What of her now? How goes the night with her? 
To what soft speeches do her pulses stir? 
Or does she listen with but half a mind 
While her soul, too, goes wand'ring on the wind ? 

Love holds within its little rosebud hand 
More knowledge than the wisest understand ; 
For this is knowledge passing all their lore ; 
"I want but Love, desiring nothing more." 

What of her now? My falcon proud and free 
That still untamed, yet stooped her flight to me ? 
Shall not mere sea be bridged by vast desire 
That it may fold her in its holy fire ? 

Surely our spirits meet ! Oh, that I might 
In this poor body go to her tonight. 
To kiss her hands, her lips, her hair, her eyes. 
As a great tempest blown from Paradise ! 



[ 50] 



Toast 

Here's to the girls who died 
That we knew in our young pride 
Before all the wine was tasted, 
For we knew loving then. 

Here's to the girls who died 
Young and still even-eyed, 

They that we deemed were wasted 
Before we had grown to men. 

To the girls we knew who died 
Ere ever their hearts were tried, 

With the first kiss barely tasted, 
Ere they could kiss again. 

And a health to the girls who live ! 
Who gave what there was to give. 

And who dare not think on Heaven 
Because they seized it here; 
Who have seen us tried through the sieve. 

Who know we are without leaven — 
And yet they hold us dear. 



[51 ] 



Gethsemane 

They only love who, smiling, 
Can take the world's reviling 

And show no answering frown; 
Who take the lone road steady 
And lift the cross as ready 

As if it were the crown. 

They only love who treasure 
An agony full measure 

To hold a dear one free; 
So faithful that, though losing, 
They still are constant, choosing 

To tread Gethsemane. 

Theirs is the Love Immortal ! 
Aye ! Though it pass the portal 

Of Death, it cannot die! 
But ere the grave can sunder 
It rises in white wonder 

A Victory in the sky. 



[50 



A Wayfarer's Pack 



Awakening 

Long, long ago I heard one who was dying 
After much love and tears and laughter, sighing: 
^^Touth is a bird^ warbling itself to sleep 
In a lad's hands that care not what they keep" 

Remote and pale it seemed, like the wan shining 
Of winter's sun on a brief day declining. 
My roads were golden-green, my harp-strings new 
And taut beneath their roses fresh with dew. 
^^Long, long it rests as if it knew no flight — 
Till he would clutch : then swift it darts from 
sight!" 

When did youth leave me ? Was it in a morning 
Of wet November when the year was dim. 
And Indian summer stripped of his adorning 
Lay slain in places that had worshipped him.? 
"/» vain our longing eyes seek and implore. • 
A moment marks what was^and is no more" 

There was a night in March, a young wind calling, 
A cry, a voice, a chording of thin gold. 
The trees replied. I woke and heard the falling 
Of thawing ice from hills, and knew that I was old. 



[ 54] 



Youth 

Dear days, dear days of youth and long past 
summer, 

Long garnered fields of rippled golden grain. 
Furrowed by winds enchanted that will never 

Furrow those fields again. 
Dear days, dear days of daisy-dotted meadows 

That vanished afternoons bathe in their glow, 
Where long-lost children wander, picking posies 

And laughing with the winds of long ago. 



[ 55 ] 



Veterans 

Heavy drums, rumbling slow, 
Beating time where the old men go. 
Withered skin, falterinp- feet. 

Glory is passing along the street! 

Faintly and afar — Hear the muttering of war! 

Far and faint. 

Beat on beat, 
A throb as if a giant heart 
Were sick with fever heat. 

Faded blue, shabby and old. 
Dimming eyes that once were bold. 
Waning life that once was sweet. 

Glory is -passing along the street 1 

The trample of a thousand horse is roaring in their 

ears! 
The wrath of great artillery peals down the vanished 

years ! 
Their tattered flags, their faded flags, are flying full 

and bright! 
Youthful and beautiful, they are going forth to fight ! 

Bent and gray that rode so straight. 
Old and sere that laughed at Fate. 
Sorrowful, hear the drum beat ! 

Glory is passing along the street I 
[ 56] 



We are coming ! We are coming ! Spit the cannon 

mouths in vain 
Their red froth on lines before us ! Still we form blue 

lines again. 
Victory's storm-flood, rising higher as each roller 

dies on shore, 
We are coming, God of Battles! Flame-eyed, 

glorious, young once more! 

Heavy drums, rumbling slow. 
Beating time where the old men go. 
Withered skin, faltering feet. 

Glory is -passing down the street! 



[57] 



Johannes Gutenberg 

Clumsy my metals freeze. They will not mould 
Into the perfect thing my vision knew. 

Failure, and Loss again ! The year grows old. 
Shall time pinch out, and I breed nothing true ? 

Almost I dare to wonder (save for awe) 

Why God witholds his aid, since I but seek 

To find new tongues that shall proclaim His law 
And make His thunders wondrously to speak. 

In vain ! The sullen metals will not yield. 

The brazier's heavy vapors touch my brain, 
And all the scheme that stood so clear revealed 

Is lost in blind confusion once again. 

Well, then ! Since all my toil is barren so. 
And life is short, and happiness is sweet. 

Be wise, Johannes Gutenberg, and go 

To seek the joys that cheer the common street. 

Were it not well to walk with others there 

Instead of passing as a thing apart. 
While neighbors shake their heads and children stare 

At the dark dreamer eating out his heart ? 

A touch, and it is done. A hammer's fall. 

The forms lie shattered, and I turn away, 
Free like my fellows, and no longer thrall 
- To this, my madness, that has made me gray. 

A touch. Say it is done. And let us say 

God in His Heaven does not know, nor see. 

I know ! And, knowing, how dare I essay 
To slip this task that has been laid on me ? 

[58 ] 



The Looms of News 

We swing the headlong Looms that weave 

The tales of human earth 
Spun by the troubled continents 

In agonies of birth. 

We watch the steady-turning globe, 

Upon its spindle hung, 
Men's lives are as a twisted flax 

Whose thread to us is flung. 

We weave! We weave! The sky may rock, 

Lands pass as smoke away; 
We gather in the warps and weave 

The Garment of the Day. 

We braid their bliss, we braid their pain. 
We braid men's hopes and fears. 

We knit their silks of joy and make 
A pattern of their tears. 

Lo, we are old that once were young! 

But never, east or west. 
Has one of all the circling suns 

Beheld our Looms at rest. 

The world was vast, the world was dim, 
When first that we were young; 

And in the half-light of his time 
Man walked dim fears among. 

[ 59] 



He walked dim fears among, and saw 

His brothers in the glooms 
Lurk as half-devils till we broke 

His terrors with our Looms. 

We snatch the scattered threads and tie 

The races face to face. 
We tie the sundered lands that once 

Stared blind across blind space. 

We knit men's hates, we knit men's loves. 

We make the pattern whole 
Of loves and hates. Behold! 'tis one! 

Humanity's wild soul. 

Throw us your spoils, oh Turkestan ! 

Ye tropics! Send your glows. 
Oh, ruined towns ! Our pattern needs 

Your somber thread of woes. 

Strike, ravening armies ! Flame, oh fleets 
Rise, nations ! Rise and spring ! 

High, high above your clamors — hark ! 
Our Looms are thundering. 



[60] 



The New House 

New house, new house, 

The world is very old; 
Ashes and dust of vanished fires. 
Houses of men and their desires. 

All as a tale that is told. 

Dear heart, dear heart. 

The world is young and blest. 
Houses of men to dust have gone. 
But the birds come north, the birds sing on. 

And each one builds its nest. 

New house, new house. 

Bar every portal tight. 
Beware the truce of the sweet noon tide! 
Behind it, grim and evil-eyed. 

Lurk tempest and the night. 

Dear heart, dear heart. 

Leave all thy bolts wide-drawn ! 
Tho' the bride of the wind ride on the sea 
And her angry court shake the moaning tree. 

Behind them is Dawn, is Dawn ! 

New house, new house, 

Wild tidings sweep the earth. 
From deeps new-stirred, from angry men. 
Hate cries as from a twilight den. 

And evil things have birth. 

[6i ] 



Dear heart, dear heart. 

The world is very old ; 
And Hate is old, but older far 
Patience and Faith and Kindness are 

And the Love that houses hold. 

New house, new house. 

Set guards upon thy walls! 
Set jealous guard at door and gate. 
For close in siege sits waiting Fate 

To steal within thy halls. 

Dear heart, dear heart. 

No foe may venture nigh 
While welcomed feet my thresholds press 
And close-knit loves my firesides bless, 

Full-garrisoned am I ! 

Polly Park Road, Rye, N. T. 



[62] 



Roosevelt 

February, i^ig 

A MOMENT in our circle 

The camp-fire flame falls low; 

One rises who is Chosen — 
Go, brother hunter, go ! 

On the long, dim trail that only 

The shadowy trailers know. 
That each must follow lonely — 

Go, brother hunter, go ! 

6ver the empty tundras 
To ice blink and to floe 

Where God's White Dog climbs dripping- 
Go, brother hunter, go ! 



[63 ] 



The Round-Table 

Mouquin' s i8g- 

Oh, hurrying Father Time, remain 
A moment, rest your scythe and leave 
Uncut the Master's grain. 
We know that we stand in the field 
And may not say if your next swath 
Will lay us prostrate in your path; 
But till this wine has disappeared. 
Old Father Grim, we pull your beard ! 
What tho' long since in vine-clad France 
You snatched the vintner from his dance! 
Behold! Despite your scythe there bloom 
Red roses on the victim's tomb. 
And from our goblets laughs at you 
The love-child of the sun and dew. 
Over your fields, as you plod by. 
Our love, a lark, soars to the sky 
And scatheless, tho' you mow along. 
Blesses your stubble with a song. 



[64] 



yjjJAg OF CONGRESS 

018 348 159 9 




